Many apologies for the lateness of the blog
Yes, it was all because of the football. Didn’t get to bed till after 5, couldn’t sleep owing to the excitement, eventually slept fitfully and woke up at 10 – and completely forgot that I was meant to be blogging this puzzle today. Hopefully I’ll be more fortunate than Jarell Quansah and get away with a yellow card. Please don’t call for a VAR review.
So this has been a heck of a rush to put together, and I apologise in advance for any duff bits of parsing on my part. There were some really lovely surfaces here but for the sake of brevity I’m picking out the wonderful PIGTAILS for my clue of the day. Many thanks to Stamp for a super Monday offering.
Moh’s sleep-deprived cruciverbal hardness scale rating: Orthoclase. Though if I’d had any proper sleep it would probably have been more like Calcite.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | PERFIDIOUS |
Faithless son mostly purified after conversion (10)
|
| Anagram (after conversion) of SO[n] PURIFIED | ||
| 6 | JUNG |
Psychiatrist‘s new, cooler chambers (4)
|
| JUG (prison, cooler) around (chambers, as a verb) N | ||
| 10 | PIQUE |
Nelson on track to lose Trafalgar, initially upset (5)
|
| PIQUE[t] (Nelson Piquet, Brazilian former racing driver, so ‘Nelson on track’) minus (to lose) T (Trafalgar initially) | ||
| 11 | NUMBER TWO |
Second name, Brown, ridiculously pronounced (6,3)
|
| N + UMBER + soundalike (pronounced) of ‘too’ (ridiculously) | ||
| 12 | PIGTAILS |
Plaits braided either side of one girl’s head? (8)
|
| Anagram (braided) of PLAITS around (either side of) I G (one girl’s head), & lit definition | ||
| 13 | AMAZE |
Floor area I swept clear of corn (5)
|
| A (area) + MA[i]ZE (corn without I/I swept clear) | ||
| 15 | AVIGNON |
Article about wine circle touring grand Provençal location (7)
|
| AN (article) around VIN O (wine circle) around (touring) G | ||
| 17 | SCRUPLE |
Screw up when cutting motorway reservation (7)
|
| SCRU[m]PLE (screw up) minus M (cutting motorway) | ||
| 19 | VIEWING |
Rival neighbours secure good survey (7)
|
| VIE (rival) next to (neighbours) WIN (secure) + G | ||
| 21 | DEMETER |
Divine cleared by device that measures divinity (7)
|
| DE (outer letters – cleared – of divine) + METER (device that measures), for the Greek earth goddess | ||
| 22 | DELHI |
City trader having charcuterie delivered (5)
|
| Soundalike (delivered) of ‘deli’ (a trader having charcuterie) | ||
| 24 | LUNCHEON |
Turkey put aside for 50 in staff meal (8)
|
| [tr]UNCHEON (staff) with the first two letters (TR is the international code for Turkey) replaced by L (put aside for 50). I wondered about ‘truncheon’ for ‘staff’, but it’s there in Chambers as the second definition | ||
| 27 | RECESSIVE |
Niche setter’s inclined to retire? (9)
|
| RECESS (niche) + I’VE (I have/setter has) | ||
| 28 | CARER |
Having dropped some ecstasy, calling nurse? (5)
|
| CARE[e]R (calling) minus one E (having dropped some ecstasy) | ||
| 29 | NEED |
Miss, once dead, oddly forgotten (4)
|
| Alternate letters (oddly forgotten) of oNcE dEaD. My first attempt at parsing this had ‘NÉE’ for miss, once + D for dead. Spent a while wondering how ‘oddly forgotten’ could define ‘need’ | ||
| 30 | AGGRESSION |
Punk gigs are about embracing singular hostility (10)
|
| Anagram (punk) of GIGS ARE + ON (about) around (embracing) S (singular) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | PIPE |
Butt which smoker will use repeatedly? (4)
|
| Double definition, a pipe being another word for a butt of ale or wine (roughly 108 imperial gallons, so Wikipedia tells me) | ||
| 2 | REQUISITE |
Essential queries being processed with IT (9)
|
| Anagram (being processed) of QUERIES IT | ||
| 3 | ID EST |
That is finally lost after Roman dates? (2,3)
|
| Last letter of [los]T after IDES | ||
| 4 | INN SIGN |
Pub swinger? (3,4)
|
| Cryptic definition – pub signs traditionally hang from a bracket and swing in the wind | ||
| 5 | UNMASKS |
At Le Moulin Rouge, a monsieur requests reveals (7)
|
| UN (French for ‘a’, so at the Moulin Rouge a) + M + ASKS | ||
| 7 | ULTRA |
Extreme resistance, Middle Eastern ruler barely suppresses (5)
|
| [s]ULTA[n] (Middle Eastern ruler barely, ie minus its outer letters) around (suppresses) R (resistance) | ||
| 8 | GOOSEBERRY |
Fruit company discomfiting lovers? (10)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 9 | HEXAGRAM |
Hydrogen emitted originally by a pulse star? (8)
|
| H (hydrogen) + E (emitted originally) + X (by, as in multiplied by) + A (from surface) + GRAM (another name for the chickpea, so ‘pulse’) | ||
| 14 | SALVADORAN |
LA road snarled with vans from Central America (10)
|
| Anagram (snarled) of LA ROAD VANS | ||
| 16 | NOISIEST |
Blast on site is most deafening (8)
|
| Anagram (blast) of ON SITE IS | ||
| 18 | POTPOURRI |
Scientists bearing crucible spill mixture (9)
|
| RI (the Royal Institution, so ‘scientists’) beneath (bearing/carrying, in a down clue) POT (crucible) + POUR (spill) | ||
| 20 | GOLFING |
Drive Heather around following a round or two? (7)
|
| GO (drive, vim, vigour) + LING (heather) around F (following) | ||
| 21 | DANSEUR |
Chap in tights torn asunder (7)
|
| Anagram (torn) of ASUNDER | ||
| 23 | LUCRE |
Clubs putting on attraction that’s said to be filthy (5)
|
| C (clubs) inside (putting on) LURE | ||
| 25 | HOCKS |
Pawns beginning to fall in surprise (5)
|
| SHOCK with the first letter moved to the bottom (beginning to fall) | ||
| 26 | IRON |
Maybe decrease in tension, originally brought about (4)
|
| Hidden reversal (in … brought about) in tensioN ORIginally |
No duff parsing as far as I can see, moh. I searched the completed grid to see if any answer included PAN to accompany the GRAM in 9D. Never heard of it as a chickpea synonym.
Setter popping in early/late to thank moh for delivering any kind of blog in the circumstances, let alone one that is bang on wrt parsing. Only one teensy tweak: ‘which’ should be included as the beginning of the second definition in 1d, PIPE.
QB @1: nice to see you here. I recall you once saying you couldn’t get on with a Stamp😉. Ref GRAM, you might have heard of gram flour, a staple ingredient in the cooking of the Indian Subcontinent.
I liked the two contrasting Nelson’s, PIGTAILS and the very plausible, fake news sounding surface of SALVADORAN. GOLFING was very nicely constructed, too. I was about to give up on HEXAGRAM, thinking it was going to be the name of a star I didn’t know, when I suddenly remembered gram flour.
I thought this was excellent, despite being quite tough in places (particularly after not having had enough sleep.)
I can’t see how “punk” in 30a can be an anagram indicator.
I had lots of ticks with PIGTAILS my favourite.
Many thanks to Stamp and to MOH.
We thought it was heading for a pangram which enabled us solve JUNG and HEXAGRAM as we were short of an X and a J.
Chambers has ‘punk’ as ‘nonsense’ so it works as an anagrind we think.
Agree with everyone about PIGTAILS.
Thanks to Stamp and moh.
Thanks for what seems like a splendid blog, moh, as usual. (It has the setter’s enthusiastic approval, so well done, under the circumstances!)
I can’t understand how anyone can be quite so obsessed with a game. I said ‘seems like’ because I’ve been rather pushed for time today and got only just over halfway through the puzzle before I had to stop, because it was time for the tennis!!!
To choose ‘favourites’ is rather invidious, because those I didn’t get round to might be cleverer / better than the ones I did but, for what it’s worth, I particularly liked PERFIDIOUS, PIQUE, PIGTAILS, AVIGNON, DEMETER, ID EST, UNMASKS, GOOSEBERRY and LUCRE (I’ve always loved that expression.) I used the word ‘scrumple’ the other day to my great grandson and thought it was a word I’d made up – I’ve never thought to look it up!
My thanks and apologies to both setter and blogger for such a sketchy comment but now I just have to get back to Wimbledon – and look in at my own blog (between points!). 🙂
A Stamp puzzle and an moh bog to go with it. Pretty good combo.
Enjoyed the puzzle as well as a blog.
My picks: NUMBER TWO, PIGTAILS, SCRUPLE, LUNCHEON, ID EST,
INN SIGN, GOOSEBERRY, HEXAGRAM, GOLFING and HOCKS.
I think Stamp is always particular about avoiding linkwords. This
aspect adds a special flavour to the clues.
Thanks Stamp and moh (largely Flourite with occasional strains of Apatite).
Thanks all for the comments, and esp to Stamp for stopping by – as KVa points out, one of the beauties of a Stamp puzzle is the almost total lack of link words so my apologies for failing to add ‘which’ to one of the defs in 1d. Now corrected.
Eileen @6, I do believe you have been hoist with your own petard, sports-wise!
moh – I think I have been misunderstood – sorry!